• Donkter@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Yeah at some point in future space tech it becomes a trolley problem where not curing genetic disabilities is as much of a non choice as pulling the lever.

    The thing is, Star Trek was a show set in the far future trying to teach us morals about the present. And unfortunately for us, we don’t have space communism so if the choice is between accommodating for birth defects and an ineffective, corruption-prone, dubiously safe eugenics program the choice is a lot easier. They have to communicate the morals of that on the show and it creates a hole in logic.

    There’s also a head cannon that the “eugenics wars” that they reference in the show has actually warped the morals of the society they’re in for the worse as any discussion of pre-natal intervention is illogically taboo.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      That’s not head-canon. It’s literally a plot point in DS9.

      It’s discovered that Julian was intellectually disabled as a child and his parents had him illegally genetically modified. He almost loses his commission and his father ends up being imprisoned over it.